


Grace

by KyeAbove



Series: The Reinforcement Of Agony AU [65]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Dehumanization, Ink Baby, Memory Issues, Past Male Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 22:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17455484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyeAbove/pseuds/KyeAbove
Summary: November 1st, 1934. Cade Vale, New York. Agony:ConsumingJoey realizes he has almost no clue how his ink creations really work when he’s presented with a tiny ink baby.





	1. Joey

**Author's Note:**

> Since I’m gonna be having a lot of fun with the ink baby concepts in this series, I thought I’d introduce the first ink baby to ever be born in the timeline.

~November 1st, 1934~

* * *

The cages were far too filled at this point, and Joey disliked that. How come he couldn’t ever make them perfect?! It was frustrating, seeing all his hard work come out with nothing.

Not even this Boris had turned out perfect. Not even after he and Casper had reset all the damage to Wally Franks mind, giving him ease and sanity of self in his final moments. Joey thought Wally would make for a perfect Boris, but this Boris still fast asleep on the table was not perfect. Close, but still not as he wished. 

What was the point of magic when it couldn’t help him achieve his goals? 

Joey sighed, rubbing behind the Boris’s ears. If only if it didn’t have to be this way. He’d likely have to put this Boris back through the machine and see if it’d come back better. It was his best chance. 

That new Ink Machine worked much better than the first, but it was still missing drive. It couldn’t be easily taught to work as he wanted it to, because it did not think. Joey wished he could change that. 

Soft footsteps didn’t deter him from his thinking about his problems with his Ink Machine, but Casper Hall was not one to be ignored, and the shorter man grabbed his shoulder to get his attention once he was close enough. 

Joey looked down at Casper, who had the oddest of looks on his face. 

“What is it, Cas?”

“Well, Jo, we have a bit of an issue...but you should just see it for yourself.” Casper seemed bewildered and confused. A good look on him. Joey though Casper was just a little too confident sometimes.

Joey doubted it was all that important anyway, but he’d humor his childhood friend. And that’s when he noticed Casper hadn’t come alone. Behind Casper was one of Casper’s pets, and Joey’s least favourite of them. The only reason this imperfect creature wasn’t locked up in a cage was because Casper was fond of the creature. Joey considered it a menace, really. Too, a reminder of what could have been. If Matt hadn’t threatened him, his little one might not yet be a suffering ink creature. 

The kitty was staring at Joey with an unrecognizing gaze. His mismatched eyes were a taunt, one perfect black pie-cut, and the other more a human-like design with a blacked out green cat-eye slit. Joey wanted to put this one back in the machine so much. At least, so he didn’t have to look at it. 

“So, what is the issue?” At Joey’s words, Casper kicked at the kitty’s leg, and the kitty’s ears twitched and it bared its teeth at Casper. 

“Show him, kitty.” Casper demanded of it, and Joey finally noticed the bundle of cloths it was carrying when it held it even closer. Joey recognized its sudden aggression as protectiveness. Although with how shattered its mind was, Joey assumed it wouldn’t be too far out of the way for it to grow attached to a bunch of random scraps. That still didn’t tell why Casper though he needed to know this.

That is, until he heard a sound from the cloths, and Casper pushed his pet closer to Joey. Pointed ears lowering closer to its head, the kitty moved the cloths around and did so reluctantly. Revealing that it wasn’t just a bundle of cloths but a protective layer around something much more interesting.

A baby. 

But it wasn’t like a human infant. Built similarly but with a more cattish nose, and pointed ears, all made up in ink and black and white and greys. When the the baby opened its eyes as the air hit its face, they were humanish instead of pie-cut, and a light grey. This infant already had a tussle of dark hair, and was very clearly alive as any of the ink creatures were alive.

Joey was in shock.   
  
“How? What?” Joey looked at Casper for answers. Casper looked like a mirror of his current feelings, and he’d clearly had this knowledge for even just a little longer. 

“No idea! It was moaning in pain for the last day or so and I just thought it was trying to get attention and then I come back from dropping my kids off at school, and its got that cuddled up to it. But it was made from a man, so how the fuck?” Casper said this like it was supposed to be even possible for an ink creature to be able to procreate. 

So, of course Joey’s first assumption was that Casper was just plain stupid. Of course it hadn’t given birth or anything! But where did this baby come from then? Especially one clearly cattish like the kitty?

Clearly a little humanish too. Joey decided to entertain the possibility that somehow, anyhow, Casper’s implications were true, as much as it confused him. These creatures were unpredictable, but surely this was just impossible.

"Has someone been touching you?" Joey asked the creature, while side eyeing Casper. Casper immediately looked offended at the very accusation, and spoke in his defense.

“Fair point, I admit! But the one time I tried it clawed my face up! I guess it remembered when I...ha, point is that I never touched the kitty.” Casper spoke with rare honesty. So Joey was inclined to believe him. 

The ink creature just looked at Joey blankly. A constant look of its. When his cult had hauled it to his feet after it’d pull itself out the puddles, it’d clearly been damaged goods. It had a terrible memory, things slipping away from it at a moment’s notice, and Joey was sure it didn’t even know itself how it ended up with this baby. 

Joey took another glance down at the baby, whose eyes flicked around, and a tiny clawed hand reached out in an attempt to inspect Joey. Joey reached out for the baby, hoping a more physical inspection of the infant would give rise to its origin. For the kitty’s previous blankness, Joey didn’t expect to get clawed for the action.

Pulling his hand back, Joey hissed from the pain of the light claw marks, and the kitty returned in kind. Clearly a warning swipe. So he had to use force? So be it.

The moment though that Joey tried to take the child, the kitty jumped back, and hissed once more, baring its teeth. Exposing too the one missing on its lower jaw. Oh, how Joey wished injuries didn’t often remain in ink. It just let to so many more imperfections. 

“Its damn protective of the thing. I’d be careful.” Joey looked at Casper, and then frowned. Casper had no right to look smug right now! “I think it only let you see the thing because it has no idea how it happened either.”

Joey looked back at it. Its eyes were no longer blank. An anger Joey had only seen sparsely his life was clear in its eyes. Joey decided it would be a hassle to try and fight it. 

Now, if what Casper was implying was in fact true, Joey had to confront the weirdness of it all. Matt Lawrence had in fact been a biological male. Joey was quite sure of that. So that must not have been reflected in ink. Now that was a whole other issue. 

Joey had to sit down. That place ended up being the floor. This really was going to be an issue and an utter puzzle, Joey knew, and Joey had no idea how he was going to solve it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The baby does in fact have two parents, but the other parent isn’t Casper. Matt’s short memory has just made him forget who helped in the process of the making of the baby. As for how this all happened, and how its possible, well, another day, another chapter, another story. The second chapter of this story will be in Matt's POV, shedding a bit of light on this mystery.


	2. Kitty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kitty Matt thinks of Casper as ‘RED’ and Joey as ‘Tall’. ‘Warmth’, though...

The kitty didn’t feel safe here. He didn’t like the sounds and he didn’t like the people. It hurt. 

Tall was still sitting down. Tall looked all funny. Tall kept looking at the kitty. Specifically at the kitty’s baby. Baby. Baby Cat. Kitten. 

Not all kitten though. Baby human look too. The kitty couldn’t explain anything. 

There was someone. There was...Warmth. Yes! That one who let him cuddle, and touch and taste warm places in exchange for even better cuddles. Warmth once said that making him feel good was kitty’s ‘saving grace.’

Grace . 

The kitty looked down at the baby in his arms. Maybe Warmth caused her! Yes. That made perfect sense to the kitty. The baby was Grace. Just, who was Warmth? The kitty was distracted from the question though when RED sighed. 

RED looked at Tall. 

“Okay, getting really tired of this personality. Jo, dear. When you can’t scheme you shut down and it's really annoying.”

Tall’s eyes glowed lilac and looked all sorts of confused. Then RED said, “Maybe I should make you all totally in love with me. Could be more hilarious than the scheming bastard change I did last time. And could make you better in bed....”

Tall’s fist clenched, and he looked up at RED with an angered aura.

_ “Stop...doing this.” _

“Nah, its hilarious watching you ruin things and be powerless to stop yourself.”

There was a groan, and the kitty hid his baby away in his jacket as the thing on the table started to wake up. 

**Threat** ? No?  **Yes.**

So the kitty hid away, cradling his baby close to his heart. Threat sat up, and looked around, confused. 

“Joey? Where am I?” Threat asked, but Tall was too out of it now to respond. Casper though replied for him. 

“You’re here, and this is now.”

“What day is it?”

“November 1st…” 

“But...I don’t...I can’t…” Threat seemed so confused. The kitty almost pitied him. But he seemed like a threat.

So without another look, the kitty ran tails away, hoping somewhere in this studio he could find a safe place for his daughter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you ever thought Joey’s characterization in this series was odd and inconsistent, Matt just witnessed why. Casper has been using magic to mess with Joey’s personality while also leaving bits of himself in control. Joey’s been fighting against it as best as he can, making him two-faced. If you were titering on who to hate more, hate Casper. Joey’s not very innocent but Casper is the one pulling the strings at this point.


End file.
